Outliers: Teaching & Learning Beyond the Norms

Abstract

Titled Outliers, various meanings and experiences of being an “outlier” in post-secondary education come alive in this 72-page zine through collage, drawing, painting, photography, poetry, song, and stories crafted by over 25 Mad, neurodivergent, and disabled students and alumni from Canada, the United States, and Belgium. Contributors discuss Mad/neurodivergent student lives and practices that stand apart from the neurotypical, such as experiences of trauma and shame, resistance, entangled body-minds, being labelled and misknown, and longing for more fluid and open identities and interpretations. They identify the formative ways Mad/neurodivergent students are detached and removed from belonging in post-secondary environments through the corrosion of sanism, ableism, capitalism, whiteness, and shiny stories of “inclusion” and “resilience” that silence and erase narratives of struggle. Authors and artists draw on Mad/neurodivergent knowledges that do not fit the dominant medical model pattern, and which are often disregarded as forms of expertise. They desire and describe Mad/neurodivergent student spaces of community and mutual support away from the conventional surveillance of and services for students in distress, and call on post-secondary institutions and instructors to listen by enhancing accessibility, Mad Positivity, and respect for neurodiversity in teaching and learning.